DRAPER, Utah —1-800 Contacts - a pioneer in selling contact lenses first via the telephone, then over the Internet - last week launched a new website to sell prescription eyeglasses.

The new site, www.glasses.com, went live June 20. John Graham, vice president and general manager of Glasses.com, told VMail the initial target customers for the site are 1-800 Contacts’ existing CL customer base. “We surveyed our customers, and a strong majority of them told us they wanted to buy eyeglasses online as well as contacts,” he said. “We also asked them how they’d like to do that, and what they said led to some of the features on our site.”

Graham said 1-800 Contacts’ founder and chief executive officer, Jonathan Coon, acquired the Glasses.com site name 12 years ago and has held onto it, waiting until the time was right to launch an online eyeglass operation. Coon said the new site “will transform the customer experience and make the process of buying glasses easy, convenient and fun.”

And although parent 1-800 Contacts has an ongoing relationship with Walmart on the contact lens side of the business, Walmart is not involved in Glasses.com, Graham noted.

Glasses.com sells only complete pairs of eyeglasses (“We're not in the business of selling components,” Graham said). The site currently offers 11 women’s frame brands and eight men’s brands. Women’s eyewear brands are 7 For All Mankind, Arabella, Baby Phat, ECO, Jones New York, M+, Modo, Oakley, Paolo Visconti, Smith Optics and Tretorn. Men’s brands are 7 For All Mankind, ECO, M+, Modo, Oakley, Paolo Visconti, Phat Farm and Smith Optics.
Lenses offered on the site are exclusively single-vision at this point, all in polycarbonate with AR coating. The lenses are supplied by Carl Zeiss Vision, whose lab network also does the site’s eyeglass production, according to Graham.

The website includes a “virtual try-on” feature as well as a printable PD ruler, which consumers can use to take their own measurements. So far, no major problems have emerged with the self-measurement approach, said Graham, who joined 1-800 Contacts 2½ years ago from the Boston Consulting Group to oversee business development. He said the site will add a progressive lens option when a few details are worked out, “including feeling comfortable that consumers can measure their seg heights accurately.”

Customers can transmit their eyeglass prescriptions to the company by scanning the prescription and emailing it to Glasses.com, faxing it, or providing the Rx over the phone via a new 1-800-GLASSES telephone number, used for both ordering and customer service.

Prices for women’s complete pairs on the site range from $89 to $325; for men’s eyeglasses, from $89 to $359. Shipping is free.

Glasses.com’s focus is on customer service, not price, Graham told VMail. “We don’t intend to offer the lowest-priced glasses you can find,” he declared. “We’re interested in building brands, not eroding them.” That said, Graham noted that if customers find a lower price online for the identical frame and lenses, Glasses.com will match that price.

The site also offers a 30-day “no questions asked” return policy, as well as a one-year frame warranty covering manufacturing defects and a 50 percent off a replacement pair in case glasses are damaged during the first year of ownership.

What’s ahead for Glasses.com? In addition to adding progressive lenses down the road, Graham said the company plans to expand its eyewear offering. “By the end of this year, we expect to double both our number of SKUs and our vendor roster,” he told VMail.

Plans also call for a consumer advertising campaign, initially to 1-800 Contacts’ current customer base, then to the general market. “We see a lot of growth potential out there,” Graham declared.